Falling Again
by SeventhSoldier
Summary: Some Faxness, getting up again after Itex
1. Dreams

**Hey, this is my very first ever fanfic. So be kind. Please. Thnx**

**Disclaimer: I' don't own Maximum ride. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Goose egg. I wish though…**

**Max POV**

The really horrible thing about dreaming is that you don't know you're dreaming until the really horrible thing happens that you know you can do nothing about. Like when you start to fall off a building. You are hit with that insane panic that you are gonna die and then all of a sudden you realize that this couldn't be happening but for some strange reason it is.

I woke up suddenly, sat up too fast and had to lay back down again. I had images still playing in the back of my mind. Lost wings. Trying to break free. Falling. Falling. Falling. All lost. My flock. Suddenly I realized where we were. The cabin. Safe. Finally. I looked around and saw the flock all crowded around me. Their faces were pale and afraid. "Max, max, calm down, it's okay. It was just a dream." Angel, her sweet little voice next to me. I looked brave for the flock.

"I'm okay guys, really. I just had a dream, that's all," I said.

"Max..." It was Fang. He looked at me with such concern I nearly told them all. But I swallowed it.

"Really, I'm o.k." I said. "I'm just gonna take a short flight."

I got up and walked out of the room. I could feel all their eyes follow me as I left, but I ignored it. Outside the air was crisp and fresh. The sun was just bellow the horizon, turning the sky sort of white-ish blue. I launched myself into the sky with three powerful thrusts, clearing the nearby trees by far. The wind was cold on my face but I ignored it. I flew higher and higher, flapping toward the sunlight, wakening the world. I tried to forget the dream with every stroke of my wings. Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh. Falling. Falling. Falling. No, stop, I told my self. Forget it. It's just a dream.

_But it isn't just a dream Max_. The voice, also known as Jeb.

Go away.

_Max, you know you can't not tell them forever. They will need to know someday. You cannot run away from these dreams either. They will catch up with you if you don't accept what you must do._

"Why the heck should I care about what you want me to do?" I shouted to the air.

_Max, you know this isn't just about what I want you do. This is about what the whole world needs you to do. Itex isn't gone. They have a new director. She will destroy the world Max. You need to stop her. Listen, the erasers are coming, Max. You cannot hide forever. Find the HQ of Itex. They must be stopped._

"What if I don't care? What if it doesn't matter anymore? What would you know? You're sitting at home typing on a laptop and drinking starbucks for heavens sake!! What would you know?" I was screaming at the top of my lungs now, into the empty air. Nothing answered me. Good.

I heart wing-beats behind me. I swerved around, then relaxed. It was Fang. He didn't say anything for a while. He just flew alongside me. I dipped down to land at my favorite place, A tiny meadow hidden among the trees with a small stream trickling through it. I landed softly and sat down on a rock. Fang landed next to me. He watched me. I spoke, "It was Jeb. He says Itex is back. That the erasers are back." He was silent.

"We don't have to, you know. We don't have to do it."

"I know," I said," but really we do. The erasers will find us sometime. We'll be back where we were."

"Oh, Max…" he leaned toward me, stroked my hair softly.

"No, Fang we can't…" but I had already leaned towards him, falling into his sweet kiss.

We broke apart. Then the erasers hit.

**Sooo, please r&r and I would be really really happy.**


	2. Ugly Beauty

**Hi. Ummm… yeah sorry about not updating recently. I've been traveling a lot. Life is complicated.**

"Fang!" I screamed. He ducked just in time to avoid a punch from an eraser. I leapt up into the air, delivering a full roundhouse kick to a nearby eraser on the way. I glanced at Fang, still on the ground, battling two erasers. I swooped down, delivering a powerful blow to one's face. His eyes went crossed and he dropped. Fang like wise finished the remaining eraser. But more poured in from the surrounding forest. I counted twelve in a quick glance. I spun and swerved away from an oncoming fist only to get a severe kick in the stomach. I doubled over and my eyes grew fuzzy.

I could hear Fang scream, "Max!!" I fell to the ground feeling the wind from another erasers punch. I knew we were losing. I shouted to fang.

"U&A. On three. One." We launched into the sky. We always went before the mark. I winced as my ribs were jostled in the rapid ascent. I heard the ping of a gun and swerved away to see a tree explode where I had been. I looked up to see Fang just ahead of me. I pumped my wings harder and rose still faster. Another shot was fired. My wing exploded in pain and I began to drop. I heard Fang roar in the distance. I looked down at the rapidly approaching ground.

Not good.

I tried to beat my wings but they merely fluttered at my effort. I screamed, realizing that the dreams had come true. I was about to die because I had ignored them so I could forget the past.

The ground swelled before me and I squeezed my eyes shut. How ironic that I would die like this, wings and all.

Ha ha.

I tensed my body and tried one last time to flap, but just as I was about to reach the trees powerful arms scooped me up and I rose again. I looked up to see fang, his beautiful dark eyes looking down at me with deep concern. He kissed me, long and sweet and I smiled at him before I went black.

I woke up in a clearing alone. For a moment I panicked and scrambled to my feet. Then I noticed the backpack and clothing laid out next to me. I looked around and spied Fang sitting in a shadow watching me. His face was stony and pale.

"Hey," I said, or tried to, but it came out in a croak. I realized how dry my throat was and how hungry I felt. He got up and produced a water bottle from the pack and handed it to me. I took a swig. "Where are the others?" I asked when I could speak again. He looked away from me, not saying anything. "Fang," I repeated with more force, "Where are they?" He slowly turned back to look me in the face.

"They're gone," he whispered.

"What?" I said.

"They're gone." His voice shook barely as he said this. Pain was in his eyes and I knew that it was true.

"What happened?" I said. I felt the tears stream down my face and I didn't try to stop them. I needed to know.

"I flew with you to here and let you down. Then I went back to the cabin. When I got there it was all burned down, completely. I saw the chopper leaving, but by then it was a long way away by and I couldn't-I just couldn't catch up. I 'm so sorry Max. This is all my fault." He looked away.

I sat down. This was too much for me to process. More tears fell down on my face and I wiped them away. I began to shake, and shake and shake. It was too much. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't but it was. I thought of Iggy, and Gazzy and Nudge and Angel. My Angel. I had let them take her from me again. I had let them take them all away. "No Fang. This isn't your fault. It's mine."

And with a scream I launched my self into the air. I flew and flew. Picking up speed, I went higher and higher. . My flight was erratic and I swerved back and forth, not sure where I was going. I looked out over the horizon where the sun was beginning to set into the Colorado mountains. It was far too beautiful next to the turmoil I felt inside. Didn't the world know that they had taken my family away from me? Didn't it know that they were gone? It should be thunderous and gray and black. But the world didn't care that they were gone. It continued being beautiful and calm. No-one cared. Just like it always was.


	3. Reason

**So umm, here's my third chapter. Sorry, its kinda dull. But my life's kinda dull. But life is still good. So please r&r and I would be uberhappy.**

**Disclaimer: I sigh still have yet to own any part of Maximum Ride. Ohhh, the sadnesssniff**

We stayed at the clearing for a couple more days. During that time, we went back to the cabin to make sure there was nothing left that we could use. When I got there I almost began to cry again, but managed to stop the tears from coming. The place lay in ruins. Bare fragments of the walls were left standing, and they looked as if a tiny breeze could topple them over. Ashes seemed to be all that was left beyond that, along with several warped and twisted pieces of metal. We began searching for anything of value. There was nothing of great importance. A flashlight. Total's water bowl. A backpack. Two cans of peaches that looked suspicious but better than nothing. We loaded it all up and headed back.

You might be wondering about my wing and the whole being shot thing. I had pretty much out of it for three days, giving it some time to heal up, plus the fact that the bullet had gone straight through my wing and not lodged in. Then of course, there was the fact that the whole flocks healing rate was crazy up, especially mine. Dunno why, maybe it's just a convenient side effect of being human/bird mutant freak on the run from freakish scientists who want to dissect our brains. How nice.

The problem with our present situation, well other than the normal ones, was that we had no freakin' idea of where to go. I tried asking the voice about it, but it managed to preserve its standard character and shut up when I needed it to talk. So we decided to go out to California, ya know see the golden gate bridge, hang out on the beach, go surfing. Yeah right.

Fang was being weird for this whole episode, like really really quiet and depressed. I mean like more quiet than he normally is. And that's like freakin' boneyard quiet. Every time I'd try to ask him anything he'd just nod or back off. Very weird for Fang.

I flew with cold intensity with my hatred of the whitecoats in every stroke. The air high above Utah was cold and fresh. It felt good to be flying way up there. Then I was seized by a wave of guilt. I was enjoying myself, stretching my wings when my flock was being held in medium size PetCo. dog crates. I picked up speed. Below me Fang saw my increase, and also sped up. I could see the anger in his face too, though he tried to conceal it best he could. Fang still blamed himself for losing them all. But it wasn't his fault. If only I hadn't been so stupid. I had felt safe and hidden and had let my guard down. Now guess who was paying for it.

_Max blaming yourself won't get them saved. _ The voice.

_Ah, on time to give me information when I don't need it_, I told it in my head.

_Max listen. You don't have time for this. You need to get to them before time runs out. Itex will use them in a way most cruel to you Max. It will hurt you more than you can ever guess. You have to get to them before they can do that. If not, Itex has already won._

_Can you just tell me something straight for once?_ I asked. _Just tell me where to go._ I was already pumping, ready to kick some eraser butt. I just needed to know where to find a convenient target…

_You're headed in the right direction Max. That's all I can tell you right now. This connection is as dangerous enough as it is. Max please. Hurry. More is at stake than their lives. Be reasonable. And look behind you. _

I swerved around. At first I didn't see anything. Down below us was only the Utah desert and a couple roads criss-crossing the landscape like black scars. Little beetle cars hurried along. Just a bunch of people leading their normal happy lives without fear of being captured by werewolf men every day. Well happy day for them. I looked harder, and let the raptor vision sink in. Faces leapt up at me. A man in a brown pickup who looked like he could use a little starbucks and an advil. A woman in a grey mini-van who looked like she was eating a lemon and trying to apply tacky red lipstick at the same time. A man in a red convertible with sunglasses twice as wide as his face. A man in a black hummer with model features and a cold glint in his ey-"Fang, we're being tracked. We need to move."

"Hmm," he said looking down, following my gaze. He appeared calm, but I could see muscles tense and his eyes shift around. "Well it's not like we can do anything about it," he said, his voice just audibly tense. "They're not about to fly a helicopter up here and come get us. And its not like we can go down and say hi." Don't ya just hate when someone says something that makes perfect sense but you hate hearing anyway? You know you do…

"Well we're going to have to do something someday, that is unless you plan to stay up here for the rest of your life.." I muttered sarcastically. He glanced at me and sighed. I almost laughed, something I hadn't done in a while. But I didn't.

After an hour or so more of flying, it began to get dark. My wings ached from flying, but I refused to show it in front of Fang. The black hummer was still following us. I had counted six in the car, too many to take after like eight straight hours of hard flying. I was constantly scanning the highway, in case some more of our pals decided to show up. We were about to go over some little town, some where on the California/Nevada border. I exchanged glances Fang and we silently decided that this was as good a time as any. We were about to dive down to find a good hidey hole when I noticed the hummer veer off their course in following us, taking the highway north, as apposed to west as we'd been going. Confused, I looked closer, making sure that they weren't just about to go in to the town some other way. But the highway had no connection. Fang saw it too.

"They weren't following us," Fang said, stating the obvious. No freakin duh

I thought about it a while. What are the odds ... I looked over at Fang. He was still tracking the hummer. His dark black eyes followed it, showing no emotion. I sighed.

"We have to follow it," I said.

"What!?"

"We have to follow it," I repeated dryly. "Jeb told me we were going in the right direction a while ago, O.K? He couldn't tell me anything else, something about the connection already being dangerous. But he said to look behind me, and there was the hummer. Any questions?" I was impatient to get going. The hummer was already getting further away as Fang and I kept going west.

"None," he said, just as dryly. Geez, you think he could show like, just a little emotion. "Its just Max, we can't keep going forever. Sooner or later we're gonna run out and lose it anyway. We need to stop for food anyway. Be reasonable." Geez, why did he have to be so, like, well, reasonable, huh? But he was right. We would lose it. I sighed, again.

"O.k. We'll stop here and catch some z's and then first thing we're outs here. Got it?"

He glared at me, and with a sigh, dove down to land.

**So please, please please r&r. I will give you a cookie. Well, maybe someday…**


	4. Lost and Found

**Thank you so much to the well, yeah, only three people who reviewed this time. But that's life. I'm happy with the seven total who have actually paid any attention anyway. Umm… I'm really sorry for not updating in like, forever. I have no excuse. Nothing. Just the fact that I was busy reveling in all this newfound time I managed to find after school went out and I didn't feel like writing. So, lez go.**

**Max POV**

I swerved up over a tall red cliff and swooped back down again into the next hidden valley. On each side of me were towering red rocks made of something like sandstone. I wheeled around to slow down and slowly descended into the small cave Fang had found. I dumped the backpack of food that I had collected from the nearby city, Moab, and sat down next to Fang. The peaches from the cabin were long gone and the food I had found wouldn't last much longer.

I felt uneasy sitting there not doing anything at all. My flock was in danger and I had already lost my best chance to find them. Slumping sown against the rock I let myself fall into an uneasy sleep.

I woke up slowly. It had turned dark. Stars glittered in a blue velvet sky and a tiny sliver of moonlight spilled across the cave's sandy floor. I rolled over onto my back to see Fang looking down at me. He watched me not with his usually intense glare, but with a kindness I hadn't seen before. "You look beautiful Max." he said softly, reaching down to touch my face. I reached up to touch his and he bent down to kiss me. I kissed him back, too caught up in the moment to care what it meant. We broke apart softly and I let him lift me into his lap. He just held me there, stroking my hair. I reached up to kiss him again, wrapping my arms around him. We broke apart after a long while. "Come on Fang." I murmured softly, stroking his hair. "Let's go find them." We got up. Fang took the pack and we took off to find out family.

We flew for hours over the interstate. The traffic far below us was packed with cars, all people going to some thing of so much more importance than anybody else that they simply must go faster than all the rest. And so we find ourselves high above a mass of a honking, jostling mess. Works with me. The closest thing in the air to me was a flock of geese far off to the right. They made me think of my own flock and I quickly turned away. I glanced over at Fang. Things had worked more between us since that night. I felt like a team, like I could always count on him.

My wings were beginning to ache. I wouldn't be able to keep going at this rate. Looking for a headquarters designed to not be found, conveniently hidden in the middle of a vast desert-y state wasn't exactly working. Just as I was about to comment to Fang the hopelessness of our situation, I saw up ahead a long winding road curving off of the interstate. I know what you're thinking. Oh boy, Max found a road! Coming off of a highway! How unique! But this road felt different. For one there were absolutely no little green signs announcing it's presence to the world, another reason; along a barbed wire fence lining the highway. Not a farmer's scrap-wood fence with old wire strung along them. A six foot chain link fence with huge coil of razor sharp wire. A tall sign with a lightning bolt stood about a mile from the road. A lot of good it would do to im form anyone who was bright enough to try to climb the fence that they were about to become human popcorn. A third thing that sent up fire works saying EVIL SCIENTIST LAIR in my head was the little black hummer pulled over to the side of the road like a fat cockroach on a white carpet.

While flying is great and all, up in the air, there isn't a whole lot of cover. There's, well, let's see, some air… some more air… well just a bit more air…wait for it…more air! Well you get the point. So after we cleared the fence we jumped down and followed the road on foot. I had thought about jacking the hummer and for convenience of entrance/exit, but that plan was soon failed when we noticed the twelve erasers loitering in/around the car. That was a no go. Dang was walking slow. The tumbleweeds were constantly scratching at my legs. The sun beat down and sweat trickled down my forehead. Fang and I had gone over the plan, only like a million times and the words kept scrolling across my brain like a marquee sign in Las Vegas. My heart was pumping hard and the adrenaline was beginning to show. I _knew_ my flock was nearby. But so were erasers, flyboys, whitecoats, a handful of corrupt world leaders, and who knows what other bloodsucking creatures. One side of the equation would have to be eliminated. No-one else was exactly volunteering so that joyous task was left to Fang and, you guessed it, me.

I scanned the road ahead and behind me. Nothing. That was semi-good news. No erasers cruising up to cut the rescue mission short and no evil bad guy super secret base coming up, but also no evil bad guy super secret base containing kidnapped family members either. Take it what you will. We kept moving.

After about an hour or so of running down the side of the road, I spotted a tiny dot in the distance. After a while it developed into a tall gray building, sticking up on the horizon looking like someone had made mistake and shipped the parts to a skyscraper to the middle of the desert instead of Chicago. It was kinda hard for it to sneak up on you. Missing that building would be like missing the fact that someone had written SPAZ on their fore-head in red marker. Ya get the point. We saw it. Whether or not we were ready to was a different question.

**OK, so there it is. Please, please, please r&r. I'm begging you. Literally.**


	5. A note from the author

I have decided to abandon this story. I'm sorry to anyone who was particularly interested in the plot-line or development. When I first started this story, I did it because I wanted to become part of something else. I wanted to step out of my life that simply isn't filled with people with wings and special powers, evil and goodness lain out plainly, talking lions, wands and hobbits and romance and love. I have looked at this story and realized that it was a distraction, that I was covering my eyes and forgetting to see the magic that already surrounded me. I was trying to write someone else's story and forgetting to make my own.

I am not saying that the rest of you are doing the same. Many of you, I am sure are making something that undoubtedly beautiful, and do not stop doing what you love. I have simply realized that I was not doing that. I will not stop reading, for I am sure that others are truly doing what they love, unlike me, and want to share what they care about with the rest of the world.

-Jax


End file.
